English is formed by various strands, reading, writing, handwriting, spelling and speaking and listening.

Intent of Literacy Curriculum

● To develop strong skills in reading, writing, speaking, and listening, fostering a love of reading, and providing a foundation for lifelong learning.

● To promote and instil a love and motivation for reading, writing and high-quality literature into pupils at all ages. At Roebuck, we aim for our children to develop a love, passion and respect for Literature.

● For all children, to leave Roebuck as a fluent reader and well-equipped writer that can express themselves freely.

 

Implementation of Literacy Curriculum

● Accelerated reader quizzes (LKS2) allow teachers to track which children are reading and that they are reading the appropriate level of book

● Opportunities to apply and develop writing skills through cross-curricular work ● Whole class learning based around class texts

● Regularly planned sessions that support the learning of specific writing skills based on the Early Years Foundation Stage and the National Curriculum

● Adults actively model and teach reading and writing skills to foster a love of both and give the children access to texts and vocabulary that they may not be aware of

● The use of imaginative play, drama, hot-seating and puppets to explore characters, settings and story events

● A rich range of real experiences and pre-reading and writing opportunities

● Planned speaking and listening opportunities which support children to speak in increasingly complex sentence structures and to develop their vocabulary – both discrete and embedded through cross-curricular links

● Termly book fairs organised and run to promote an exciting reading culture with the school community

● All new staff trained in DSR to support the delivery in KS1 and reading fluency for all staff.

● Staff CPD provided on: Reading Fluency, Vocabulary rich environment, Hooked on Books.

● Exciting class book corners well-stocked and organised with a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry available.

● Immersive topic with Literacy – topics to get boys hooked. E.g. ‘Marcus Rashford sporting biographies’

● Immersive themed days/weeks (e.g. World Book Day) including regular experience days within the Write Stuff units.

● Reading challenges for home including extreme reading and summer reading challenge.

● Promoting a love for reading through:

v. Scrapbooks/scrapbook day

vi. Parental engagement vii. Reading challenges

viii.Author visits

ix. Vending Machine

x. Immersie Book corners

xi. Ready, set read Usborne book

Spelling At Roebuck Academy

we aim to develop spelling and writing skills throughout every child's time at school, preparing them for their journey to Secondary education. In Reception and Key Stage One we primarily use the phonic strategies of decoding, segmenting and blending to assist children in the learning of their spellings. Some children also learn their spellings by rote. We also use, from Year 2 up, Super Hero Spellings as a scheme to support children with a variety of methods in which to support spellings. Many words still have to be learnt, sometimes referred to as common exception words, so providing children with a variety of methods can and will support this.

 

Reading

Reading is crucial to children's development and potential for success in life. Research shows that children who read books often at age 10 and continue to read through adolescence, gain higher results in maths, vocabulary and spelling tests at age 16 than those who read less regularly. Nothing is more important in education than ensuring that every child can read well. Pupils who can read are overwhelmingly more likely to succeed at school, achieve good qualifications, and subsequently enjoy a fulfilling and rewarding career.

Those who cannot will find themselves at constant disadvantage. In Years 2-6, Guided reading is taught daily and children are provided with opportunities to read aloud weekly in whole class, 1:1 or group settings. Jane Considine’s Hooked on Books reading rainbow is used to support the teaching of reading along with book talk and comprehension sessions.

 

In Year 1, Daily supported reading is used daily where the children use decodable books where they develop their fluency, decoding, oracy as well as overall comprehension of a text. Children are grouped in accordance to their ability to ensure accelerated progress with children. Equality, diversity and inclusion is at the forefront of our Literacy provision and we always seek ways how we can represent every child. To help teachers choose their novels, we have created a working reading spine document which showcases various books with an underpinning of core values and themes

 

As part of our reading curriculum, we have a strong focus on reading fluency. Some strategies we use to embed fluency within our curriculum:

● Echo reading

● Paired reading

● Text marking (encourage this in lessons- you may

● need to spend a lesson on introducing the symbols

● Performance reading

● Read along (choral reading)

● Read aloud

● Repeated reading

● Pre-reading

Promoting a love for reading

We all know that there is nothing better than a great book and nothing worse than a bad one! As teachers of young children, it is our job to instil both a love of literature in various forms as well as the skills with which to read. At Roebuck, we want our children to become enthusiastic, engaged readers and to develop a life-long love of books. Each classroom is filled with carefully chosen books which feature their class libraries. As well as this, the whole school library has an array of genres, text types and different representations making all children feel seen through literature.

 

Helping your child at home

Children in EYFS and KS1 bring home levelled books (according to their stage of development), each week. These books should be easily decodable for the children where they should be developing their fluency and expression. KS2 children will bring home a self-selected book from their class reading library which is matched to their reading ability. All children will have a chance to attend the Main School Library where they will choose a book for their pleasure. Please encourage your child to change their book regularly so they can read each evening; speak to the class teacher if this is not happening. Your child should be reading at home for 15 to 20 minutes or more each day. Your support is hugely important for developing their reading skills, confidence and understanding. Even if your child is an independent reader, it is still important for you to read with them, listen to them and discuss the books they are reading.

 

How to support developing readers at home:

● Try to listen to and read with your child regularly, 10 minutes a day is better than a longer session once a week. It can help if a regular time is set aside so that it becomes part of a routine. Often we have found it is best if this time is set aside when the children arrive home from school.

● Find a quiet place to share books where you can feel comfortable and relaxed – learning to read needs to be a positive experience - build children's confidence by praising their efforts.

● Encourage your child to have a go at reading words, by using phonic skills to read any unfamiliar words, and by working on building up their sight vocabulary.

● Talk about the meanings of words to help to develop your child’s understanding and use of language.

● Encourage your child to read a range of texts such as stories, newspapers, comics, labels, poetry, non-fiction, tickets, signs, leaflets etc.

● Read books to your child as well; if they see you enjoying a book it will encourage and motivate them to want to learn to read.

● Ask them questions about the text to develop their understanding.

 

 

Questions to Develop Understanding:

Where/when does the story take place?

Who are the characters in the story?

Who is the main character?

How do you know?

What clues are there to show this?

What happens in this part of the story?

Explain using evidence from the story.

Tell me one/two things that the main character does in this part of the story?

Can you retell the story using your own words?

Tell me what this character was like? Give evidence from the text.

Tell me the most interesting/ exciting/ funniest/ your favourite part of the story? Why? What do you think the character feels about...?

How can you tell? What do you think would have happened if…?

Why do you think that? Predict what you think is going to happen next?

Which part of this book did you like best/least? Why?

How has the author used words/phrases to make this character funny/ sad/ clever/ frightening/ excited etc?

Why is … a good title for this story/book/chapter/play?

Do you know any more stories like this? Tell me how they are alike.

Do you know another story with similar characters in? Tell me how they are similar.

What do you think this story is trying to tell us?

Has anything like this ever happened to you?

 

 

Reading Apps / Internet There are a considerable amount of free resources, free e-books and activities linked to your child's reading to encourage them to read at home, on a laptop, a tablet or computer! Good recommendations are:

● Oxfordowl.co.uk

● RisingstarsUK.com

● Topmarks.co.uk

● Words for life

● Junior Jackanory

● CBeebies Bedtime Storie